Help with parental control! Allowed game apps link to YouTube which is undesirable

[netgyks]

Sometimes you want a kid to be able to play with your phone, so simply keeping it out of my child's hands isn't the answer I'm looking for.

I've tried some parental control apps, and they restrict his ability to use apps that I do not specify, but some game apps which I do deem fine for use have links to YouTube videos. From there he finds Lego Batman and Lego Star Wars walkthroughs and picks up wonderful words. Now my darling boy is calling me a See You Next Tuesday. I'm in the car with him while these videos are playing and I don't always hear what the reviewers are saying. Now, however, as soon as I hear something even remotely like Lego game music, I jump down the poor child's throat with energy directed against the phone. It's made him feel very sad--he didn't realize these words were bad, he wants to say things that aren't rude, he doesn't understand why the people on YouTube are like that. He sees a wonderful videogame and now someone's gone and thrown feces on it. Sad situation for him. I feel bad for him. But I can't have these influences finding their way into his thinking.

Are there any apps that will flat out block YouTube? Please help me out. I do not want to go crawling back to Apple--I love the versatility of my Galaxy S3! I can't deal with being fettered by Apple's restrictions, but I do miss the parental control native to iOS.

 

[Mooncatt]

You could flat out disable the YouTube app all together. I haven't looked at any parental control apps, but I would think some could block websites so you can't access it that way either. It isn't full proof as the app could be enabled again easily if he's savvy enough to know about that ability. It also means you have to enable it again if you want to use the YouTube app.

 

[srkmagnus]

This app might be worth looking at: Kids Place - Parental Controls

You do need to set a pin to exit out of the app. I can't provide an analysis or review of the app since I don't use it. However, the reviews look positive and it might be what you are looking for. Let us know if it works for you and what you think of it.

 

[netgyks]

I used Kids Place and he inadvertently did a run-around on it. He's too young to be devious. When in the My Little Ponies or the Snoopy Street Fair apps, there are ads for other games. From there he can get to the Play Store, and on the advertised games' entries on the Store, there are YouTube videos. From there, he can search for Lego walkthroughs. And from there, my sweet child learns all this stuff!

Earlier today I rooted my Galaxy S3 and removed the YouTube app. Previously I had it removed from the App list, but he could use the search function from Google Now and find the app. It took a forced removal to get that far.

Later I will try something like Safe Browser to see if I can disable YouTube in the Android Chrome browser. He might be able to see YouTube ads via those other game apps, but he shouldn't be able to browse out and find walkthroughs.

tl;dr - being a parent is hard, not that we didn't already all know this

 

[Mooncatt]

Not sure about the Snoopy game, but that MLP game is nothing but a cash grab anyway. Especially after killing the hack.

 

[netgyks]

Yep, I don't enjoy that game at all. I was at level 54 and just left it there for the kiddo. I need to read some reviews on better android games.